WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — A new analysis of peer-reviewed literature reveals that more than 500 scientists have published evidence refuting at least one element of current man-made global warming scares. More than 300 of the scientists found evidence that 1) a natural moderate 1,500-year climate cycle has produced more than a dozen global warmings similar to ours since the last Ice Age and/or that 2) our Modern Warming is linked strongly to variations in the sun’s irradiance. “This data and the list of scientists make a mockery of recent claims that a scientific consensus blames humans as the primary cause of global temperature increases since 1850,” said Hudson Institute Senior Fellow Dennis Avery.

Other researchers found evidence that 3) sea levels are failing to rise importantly; 4) that our storms and droughts are becoming fewer and milder with this warming as they did during previous global warmings; 5) that human deaths will be reduced with warming because cold kills twice as many people as heat; and 6) that corals, trees, birds, mammals, and butterflies are adapting well to the routine reality of changing climate.

Despite being published in such journals such as Science, Nature and Geophysical Review Letters, these scientists have gotten little media attention. “Not all of these researchers would describe themselves as global warming skeptics,” said Avery, “but the evidence in their studies is there for all to see.”

The names were compiled by Avery and climate physicist S. Fred Singer, the co-authors of the new book Unstoppable Global Warming: Every 1,500 Years, mainly from the peer-reviewed studies cited in their book. The researchers’ specialties include tree rings, sea levels, stalagmites, lichens, pollen, plankton, insects, public health, Chinese history and astrophysics.

“We have had a Greenhouse Theory with no evidence to support it-except a moderate warming turned into a scare by computer models whose results have never been verified with real-world events,” said co-author Singer. “On the other hand, we have compelling evidence of a real-world climate cycle averaging 1470 years (plus or minus 500) running through the last million years of history. The climate cycle has above all been moderate, and the trees, bears, birds, and humans have quietly adapted.”

“Two thousand years of published human histories say that the warm periods were good for people,” says Avery. “It was the harsh, unstable Dark Ages and Little Ice Age that brought bigger storms, untimely frost, widespread famine and plagues of disease.” “There may have been a consensus of guesses among climate model-builders,” says Singer. “However, the models only reflect the warming, not its cause.” He noted that about 70 percent of the earth’s post-1850 warming came before 1940, and thus was probably not caused by human-emitted greenhouse gases. The net post-1940 warming totals only a tiny 0.2 degrees C.

The historic evidence of the natural cycle includes the 5000-year record of Nile floods, 1st-century Roman wine production in Britain, and thousands of museum paintings that portrayed sunnier skies during the Medieval Warming and more cloudiness during the Little Ice Age. The physical evidence comes from oxygen isotopes, beryllium ions, tiny sea and pollen fossils, and ancient tree rings. The evidence recovered from ice cores, sea and lake sediments, cave stalagmites and glaciers has been analyzed by electron microscopes, satellites, and computers. Temperatures during the Medieval Warming Period on California’s Whitewing Mountain must have been 3.2 degrees warmer than today, says Constance Millar of the U.S. Forest Service, based on her study of seven species of relict trees that grew above today’s tree line.

Singer emphasized, “Humans have known since the invention of the telescope that the earth’s climate variations were linked to the sunspot cycle, but we had not understood how. Recent experiments have demonstrated that more or fewer cosmic rays hitting the earth create more or fewer of the low, cooling clouds that deflect solar heat back into space-amplifying small variations in the intensity of the sun.

Avery and Singer noted that there are hundreds of additional peer-reviewed studies that have found cycle evidence, and that they will publish additional researchers’ names and studies. They also noted that their book was funded by Wallace O. Sellers, a Hudson board member, without any corporate contributions.

1) Can we distinguish the effects of human activity on climate from natural events?

2) Can we quantify the magnitude of the human impact on climate?

This applies the scientific method to open systems where we assume that intelligent causation may be in evidence.

Applying these methods provides basis for applying similar methods to identifying intelligent causation in historic, prehistoric and origins applications.

The climate change study and debate raises the issue of how to address in the public square the scientific method to open systems when some deny intelligent causation, some insist it occurred, and some wish to objectively identify if intelligent causation occurred.

Sorry to sound like a wet blanket, but I think it would be wise to treat Avery and Singer’s book with caution. I do not wish to quarrel with their case for a natural 1500-year cycle continuing over the last million years. What I would question is their assertion that changes in the Earth’s climate over the last 20 or 30 years can be explained by solar cycles and/or cosmic rays. Both hypotheses have been discredited by recent studies. Please see the following links:

Your post sounds very measured and objective. But I suspect you’re neither. Why? Well, because you’ve missed the whole point of the article DaveScot linked to. You seem to accept this 1500-year natural cycle. Well, what about what Singer says in the article, that 70% of the heating since we came out of the Little Ice Age was before 1940 (weren’t too many cars around in those days), and 30% since, for a total of 0.2 degrees C. And Singer isn’t suggesting that solar cycles and cosmic rays have affected the earth’s climate for the “last 20 or 30 years”, but for the last million years. If 70% of the overall heating that has taken place since the Last Ice Age happened before humans began spewing CO2 all over the place, and only 30% since, my suggestion is that we spew more CO2: obviously it is slowing down global warming. Isn’t that one logical conclusion?

Well, it is. But I say that only to make clear how evident it is that whatever global warming that is happening is NOT due to what humans are doing, or have done. You know, Mother Nature is a lot bigger than we are. Why should we be so arrogant as to think we can overpower Nature?

vjtorley and PaV
Encourage you to address the difference between detectable anthropogenic warming vs quantifying its magnitude and uncertainty. The anthropogenic CO2 increase is obvious. Detecting the relative magnitude of the numerous causes, their verification and their uncertainties appear to be the major scientific challenge.

Consequent assumptions and projections lie at the heart of the highly polarized political campaigns.

Thank you for your comments. I’d like to clarify something: I appreciate your pint, PaV, that Singer and Avery are proposing that solar cycles and cosmic rays have affected the earthÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s climate for the last million years. The reason why I focused on the “last 20 or 30 years” was that the evidence (see the first two articles I cited above) indicates that during this time period, the global warming observed was purely anthropogenic. In fact, it was more than 100% man-made: natural changes actually went in the opposite direction of the observed trend, so if they hadn’t occurred, the warming observed would have been even greater.

I do not contest Singer’s point that 70% of the heating that occurred since we came out of the Little Ice Age was before 1940, and that much of this may have been natural in origin. However, the point remains that the increase of 0.74 degrees Celsius that has occurred in global temperatures during the past century is larger than can be accounted for by natural factors alone. (The figure of 0.74 degrees comes from the Royal Society Climate booklet, dated 2007, which is the fourth link I cited above.) Computer models indicate that man-made warming in the 21st century will be quite substantial, so it makes sense to prepare for that. However, I don’t support wimpy, half-baked proposals like buying a Prius; we need to contemplate much more radical measures, as Robert Samuelson explains in this article at http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....01855.html

We should also face the fact that we probably won’t be able to prevent much of the warming predicted for the 21st century, as the Third World is still industrializing and advancing technologically – and who can blame them for that? If the computer projections are anything to go by, probably the best we can realistically hope for is to limit the rise to 3 degrees Celsius.

Finally, in response to PaV’s question, “Why should we be so arrogant as to think we can overpower Nature?”, I would reply: “Because we human beings possess intelligence, coupled with an almost unlimited talent for making mischief, as our history has shown.”

DLH: I’m really sorry I couldn’t be more specific about the relative magnitude of natural and anthropogenic warming, but I’m not a scientist, and I guess it depends on the time period you’re considering. Are there any climate scientists online who would care to comment?

If the work Anthony Watts is doing over at surfacestations.org is representative of the entire world, then I think there is good reason to even be highly skeptical of the raw temperature data itself. Is the warming trend really as significant as we’ve been told? Perhaps not.